Up Till Now by William Shatner

Up Till Now by William Shatner and David Fisher

I bought this William Shatner autobiography for $2 in my favourite second-hand book shop in Moonee Ponds in March 2020. Released in 2008, I had the first paperback edition, dated 2009. It's amazing to think that Shatner, born in 1931, will turn 90 next year.

At 342 pages, it is a fair-sized book without being huge, and has 16 pages of b/w and colour photos, ranging across his life.

Shatner became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek franchise but his work is very wide-ranging, including T. J. Hooker, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Practice and Boston Legal.

I did not realise he started as a young man with the Canadian National Repertory Theatre in Ottawa, where he trained as a classical Shakespearean actor and his film debut was way back in 1951. 

I'm sure that all older TV viewers will remember him starring in one very popular episode of the science fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone, titled Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. He also starred in the 1966 gothic horror film Incubus (Esperanto: Inkubo,) one of the very few feature-length movies ever made with all dialogue spoken in Esperanto. 

Amazingly, he tells how he struggled financially through most of his career, never managing to make to the ranks of top male leads. 

Shatner has always been willing to take risks for his art. Who else would share the screen with thousands of tarantulas, release an album called Has Been, or film a racially incendiary film in the Deep South during the height of the civil rights era? And who else would willingly paramotor into a field of waiting fans armed with paintball guns, all waiting for a chance to stun Captain…er, Shatner?

it's a touching and very funny autobiography in which Shatner opens up and unassumingly talks of his life.

I haven't heard it but there is an audio version of this autobiography, read by author himself, that gets very good reviews.